


What's in a name, or whatever

by Antonomasia



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Siblings, Trans Dexter Grif, Trans Dick Simmons implied, Trans Male Character, implied grimmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22096561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antonomasia/pseuds/Antonomasia
Summary: Tucker looks up the meaning of "Kaikaina" and Grif has a minor crisis. Thankfully, his baby sister's got his back.
Relationships: Dexter Grif & Kaikaina Grif | Sister
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	What's in a name, or whatever

It winds up being Tucker, of all people, who asks about it first.

He probably looked it up, like every other guy who ever tried to get into Kai's pants, as if knowing what her name meant would somehow impress her. (As if it wasn't obvious that the only other words they knew were _Aloha_ and **_Lū‘au_** **.** Like, wow. Congrats haole, you know how to use google translate.)

Anyway, there she was, living her best life, giving her brother shit for denying his super-obvious, burgeoning nerd-lust, when Tucker showed up and dropped this little bomb on them:

“So, you guys got a long-lost sibling you never mention or what?”

Kai pulled off some truly impressive gymnastic maneuvers with her face while Dex just stared at him like he was fucking stupid, which really isn't any different from how he usually looked at Tucker aside from the slight pinch of his brows.

“What the fuck are you talking about, dude?”

Tucker smiled, pulled himself up like he just cracked some sort of code.

“Kaikaina means 'younger sibling of the same gender' right? Well Grif's a dude so that means you guys must have another sister.”

He turned to Grif, who looked like someone just sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and his smile widened, taking the expression to mean he was on he right track.

“Ohh! You _totally_ do. I fuckin' called it!”

He spun around, as though preparing to announce his discovery to everyone within shouting distance, but a hand seized him by the shoulder before he could get another word out, and suddenly he was being yanked backwards and turned around with way more force than was strictly necessary.

“ _Ow_ , what the _shit_ , K-”

“You didn't call _jack_ , bitch!”

Kai must have realized how angry she sounded, because she quickly dialed herself back and tried to pretend like she hadn't just flipped her shit by abruptly letting go of Tucker's shoulder, which he immediately rubbed like a little kid who'd just spent a four hour road-trip being relentlessly slug-bugged.

“Jesus! What's with the manhandling?”

“What's with you assuming shit about our family?”

“Uh...?” He looked between the two Grifs, one inexplicably pissed, the other trying to mirror the sentiment only to come across as vaguely nauseated. “Because that's like the only good reason to name someone something so specific?”

“Yeah, well, Dex's name means 'right-handed' but he's a leftie so sometimes names aren't fucking accurate!”

Tucker blinked, his brows slowly climbing towards his hairline.

“Wow, you are super heated about this.”

“Well yeah, it's like super, uh -” Kai paused, momentarily floundering for a word before Dex suddenly piped up, having apparently recovered the ability to breathe.

“--Racist?”

“Yeah, racist! It's _super_ racist to assume someone knows Hawaiian just 'cause they're brown!”

“Yeah!"

Tucker raised his hands, unsure whether he was more baffled by the hostile direction the conversation had taken, or the poorly-reasoned accusation that he was racist.

“Okay but I have literally heard you two speak Hawaiian?”

Kai threw out her hands and raised her voice, because there's no acting quite like over-acting.

“That doesn't meany you can just go around assuming our mom knows what shit means! Maybe she's a total dumbass, you don't know.”

Dexter could pull up a staggering number of examples in support of this point, but kept quiet as to not embarrass the family. They were already doing a bang up job of that themselves with this dumpster-fire of a misdirection.

Tucker, for his part, looked like he very much wanted to backpedal out of the entire conversation, but had gotten so turned around that he had no idea where the exit was.

“Uh...am I supposed to _agree_ with that, or...?”

Before anyone had the chance to dig themselves deeper into this shitshow of a conversation, Sarge, who had a sixth sense for conflict and a pathological need to insert himself into any situation which might involve bloodshed, wanton destruction, or Grif's suffering, came charging into the room.

“What in the name of all that is good and holy and synonymous with everything Grif isn't is going in here?”

“Tucker is being racist to us 'cause we're brown.” Kai said, ignoring Tucker's indignant cry of 'what the fuck?'

Sarge looked entirely unsurprised by this news, but he still curled his lip and shook his fist at the clouds in a show of disdain that only cartoonishly belligerent old men can really pull off.

“Those damn dirty Blues and their colorism!” He barked, working himself into a righteously indignant froth while everyone else took a moment to appreciate all the levels of irony going on there.

For the next four minutes Tucker would try to defend himself against Sarge's fervent accusations of bigotry, debauchery, and every other distasteful act ending in 'ry' he could think of, of which there were many because thinking of horrible things to call the Blues was one of Sarge's favorite pastimes, and he always had new goodies he wanted to try waiting at the top of the stockpile. Tucker quickly realized he was fighting a losing battle and decided to olly-out, throwing his hands up as he spun around and walked back out the way he came, only for Sarge to follow after him, alternating between hurling abuses and lauding the members of Red team -even that dirtbag Grif- for being color-blind.

Once they were gone, and everything was quiet, and the two Grifs were the only people left in the room, Dexter breathed out a quiet sigh and allowed Kai to sling an arm around his shoulders, pulling him into a little side-hug so she could rest her cheek against his temple. Idly, she noticed his hair smelled, inexplicably, like cinnamon.

“I'm guessing he doesn't know.”

“Nope.”

“Your boyfriend know?”

“He's not my fucking _boyfriend_ , but, uh - yeah. He knows.”

Simmons was the first person he ever told, and that was only after he woke up from getting crushed by a tank and realized, even with donor skin, he still had a distinctive scar under his left pectoral.

“Yeah, figured he would. What about the whitesh-gray guy and Colonel Dilf?”

Dexter closed his eyes as though those words caused him physical pain, which they _did_ because psychic damage was real and Kai was even better than Donut at dishing it out.

“I think I just threw up in my mouth a little, but yeah. They know. Sarge is...weirdly cool about it.”

“Good. Otherwise I'd have to beat his ass.”

Dexter snorted, not because he doubted she could, but because he knew she absolutely would. People always gave him credit for taking care of his little sister, for stepping up and raising them both when both their parents dropped the fucking ball on actually being parents, but Kai took care of him too, in her own ways. They never said anything about it, because that would require a level of honesty and emotional maturity that only kids who grew up in stable home environments with bougie shit like “ _adult supervision_ ” and “ _the slightest fucking modicum of parental care_ ” could achieve, but it was fine.

They didn't need to thank each other explicitly. They telegraphed their meanings in a look, a touch, by working two jobs and donating blood plasma to keep the lights on and the fridge stocked and her clothes clean, by saying _love you, love you, love you_ periodically throughout the day, every day, because he need to hear it she was the only one who ever said it.

Still, times like this, Dexter got a tight, rolling feeling behind his ribs, the irrational urge to make sure Kai knew how much he appreciated her even though science hadn't yet invented a number large enough to quantify it. Any attempt he made to express the value in words would fall woefully short, but still, he had to at least try.

“So, uh...” He began, already off to a great fucking start. “Thanks, for, y'know--”

Kai cut him off with a scoff, her entire head lolling to the side from the sheer force of her eye-roll.

“Bitch, shut up and hug me.”

He did, and as Kai squeezed him so hard his bones started to creak, it was easy to forget about what her name meant, what it said about him, and that he had ever been called anything other than Dexter Grif.


End file.
